


Barry's Last

by 79hogwarts83



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 05:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11571333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/79hogwarts83/pseuds/79hogwarts83
Summary: Sam gets a letter from Barry's parents, including a note from Barry himself. Dean comforts his little brother as he grieves.





	Barry's Last

Sam sat on the couch, already ripping into the letter before he’d stopped bouncing on the cushions. It was the first one Barry had sent him, and Sam was worried about his friend.  
Dean settled on the couch next to his little brother, two PB&J sandwiches in one hand and a soda in the other.  
“Pass, the remote, Squirt,” he demanded. When Sam didn’t respond, Dean elbowed him in the ribs as he reached across the kid’s lap to grab it. Sam sat unnaturally still, staring at his letter.  
“Sammy?” Dean asked. “What’s up?”  
With a deep, shuddering breath, Sam met his brother’s green eyes with tear-filled hazel ones.  
“Barry,” he managed to choke out before the hot droplets began sliding down his cheeks.  
“Huh?”  
Sam just held out the letter with trembling hands. Dean took it and read quickly.  
“Oh, Sammy,” Dean murmured, “I’m so sorry.”  
Sam just sniffed and wiped his nose with his too-long sleeve. He toyed with the envelope in his lap for a moment before withdrawing another folded note.  
“What’s that, Sam?” Dean asked quietly.  
“I think it’s his….his note.”  
Shaky letters in black in spelled To Sam, From Barry on the outside. Dean cleared his throat nervously.  
“Sam, you don’t—you don’t have to read that. You don’t have to do this right now.”  
But Sam shook his head vigorously, chocolate-brown hair flying everywhere and tears still flowing steadily.  
“I do. I owe him that. But just…” he trailed off.  
“What? What is it?”  
“Will you stay? Will you sit with me? While I read it?” Sam asked in a tiny squeak of a voice.  
Dean felt his throat tighten for a moment.  
“Yeah, Sammy,” he whispered gently and slipped an arm around his brother’s slim shoulders. “I’ll stay right here. As long as you need.”  
Sam leaned into his big brother’s body, breathing in deep the scent of peanut butter and leather before he unfolded the letter with fumbling fingers. 

Dear Sam,  
I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do anymore. I miss you, and I wish you were still here. I don’t even know where you are now, since it’s been a few weeks and you said you’d be moving on from Virginia soon last time you wrote.  
Things aren’t great here. I’m failing most of my classes now, ever since the divorce. During the day all I want to do is sleep, and at night I just think about how hopeless everything is and I don’t have a hope of going to college with my grades like they are. I don’t think I even care anymore. Everything is so screwed up. I’m in such a deep hole, and it’s so dark in here and I don’t have the energy to dig anymore but somehow I keep falling further down. I just can’t, I can’t do it anymore, Sam, and I don’t want to. It’s too much and I just can’t do it. All I hear about is the problems I’m causing. Everybody seems to think they’d be better off without me to be worrying about or messing things up. And they’re right.

So I’m sorry again, Sam. I’m sorry you had to worry about me when you were here. I know I was a pain. I hope you’re not worrying about me anymore, but by the time you get this letter you won’t have to. Everybody I know is done with me, so I’m going to do the only good thing I can and get out of the way.  
Bye, Sam. Thanks for being my friend. 

Barry

“He wasn’t,” Sam whispered to himself as he folded up the letter again.  
“Wasn’t what, Sam?” Dean asked.  
“He wasn’t a pain,” Sam elaborated. “He was my friend. I liked him. He was smart, and he was funny, and I should have told him that. Why didn’t I tell him that? He’s not messed up, he’s not in the way, and he’s—he was—was….”  
Sam’s voice trailed off as he choked on his words and began crying in earnest. Dean just gripped Sam’s shoulder more tightly and pulled him in, reaching his other arm around to envelop the kid in a hug, doing his big-brother best to hold his little brother together when he was falling apart.  
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean muttered into his hair. “I know. This sucks, and I’m so sorry. I am so sorry. Yeah, hold onto me, Sammy. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”  
Sam couldn’t really hear Dean’s words over his own sniffling and gasping sobs, but he could feel the rumble of that deep voice against his body as he held on and allowed himself to be overwhelmed with grief for a few minutes.  
Finally Sam’s tears slowed, and though he kept sniffling, he started coming back to himself a little bit. Dean gave him one last squeeze before letting him sit up fully.  
“You okay, little brother?” Dean asked seriously.  
Sam took a moment to really consider.  
“I’m tired,” he sighed, feeling the heaviness of the last twenty minutes settle over his body like a weighted blanket.  
“Go take a shower,” Dean suggested. He didn’t know how to handle this, not really, but he knew Sam needed him to be reassuring and in charge. “Then get in your jammies and we’ll get in bed and watch a movie, okay?”  
He also knew that he needed to give Sam a distraction from the depths of his own mind, because left to his own devices, that kid could get to some pretty dark places of his own, and that was the last thing Dean wanted for him.  
Sam just nodded and went to grab his pajamas from his bag before disappearing into the bathroom. Dean checked the TV Guide and found a mindless, cheesy horror film to watch and then called his dad to give him a heads-up on the situation. By the time he’d hung up, the water had turned off.  
Steam billowed out when he opened the door, and Sam made his way slowly to the bed with his wet hair plastered to his forehead and dripping down his ears and nose. He climbed into the bed next to Dean, who held his arm open in invitation for Sam to curl up into his side as he had when he was much younger.  
The fifteen-year-old snuggled close to his brother, who wisely didn’t say a word about the growing wet spot developing on his shirt from Sam’s hair. He just held Sam close, rubbing gentle circles into his bony shoulder with a callused thumb.  
Neither of them spoke anymore, and it wasn’t long before Sam’s eyes slid closed and his breathing deepened and evened out. He wasn’t completely asleep, though, and it didn’t escape his notice that Dean had turned the volume of the TV all the way down. When he started softly singing “Nothing Else Matters,” Sam finally relaxed enough to allow his brother’s voice, the warmth of his body, and the echoing vibrations of his chest to lull him to sleep.


End file.
